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Credit Where Credit is Due

Have you ever taken credit for something you didn’t do or was out of your hands to create?

It’s not to say that you were trying to steal someone else’s thoughts, creation, or work. It’s just you are trying to take full credit for something you really had no true control over.

Well then you are just like Emma when she believes she is the one who brought Miss Taylor and Mr. Weston together.

Now a lot of people laugh at how conceited Emma is in this scene, but this is actually something a lot of people fall into.

For all you sports fans, think about the last game you saw in which your team won because “you wore a special shirt or socks”. Or how about the fact you won a prize because you chose your “lucky number”? Or the time you won a game because you “blew luck into the dice”? Or getting a certain space in Monopoly because you “claimed” it? Or the time you passed a test because you wore a “lucky” piece of clothing? Yep, we humans love to claim that some act we did caused a realignment in the cosmos and brought about something we desired.

In reality, none of our little “lucky” things or claims did anything to affect it. It was out of our control the whole time, but we feel better having done “something”. It makes us feel in control.

In Emma, Emma Woodhouse’s governess and best friend has just married the widower Mr. Weston. Emma is convinced that she is the one who made it all happen, as four years ago when everyone said Mr. Weston would never marry, she was determined to prove them all wrong.

However, there is a huge problem with this thought. In thinking that she did everything, Emma is totally disregarding the feelings of her mentor and Mr. Weston. Because she was lucky in her guess, she believes she is the one who made all the decisions, a true puppet master.

Sorry Emma, that’s not how it works. People are like cats, they don’t do something because you want them to. They do what they want to do.

If they want to be together, they will try to get together. But if they don’t want to get together, then it’s not going to work out.

As Mr. Knightley says it:

“I do not understand what you mean by ‘success’, said Mr Knightley. “Success supposes endeavor…But if, which I rather imagine, your making the match, as you call it, means only your planning it, your saying to yourself one idle day, ‘I think it would be a very good thing for Miss Taylor if Mr. Weston were to marry her,’ and saying it again to yourself every now and then afterwards, why do you talk of success? Where is your merit? You made a lucky guess; and that is all that can be said.”

Unfortunately, like most people, Emma won’t listen to him as she is adamant that her thoughts and suppositions had a true effect on the real world.

And is now determined to set her sights on someone else, fixing them up and proving to Mr. Knightley that she is in control.